1920 — Congress of Peoples of the East in Baku, Soviet Azerbaijan, calls for "jihad" against imperialism. Attended by Soviet revolutionaries and foreign anti-imperialists, including many Muslims and John Reed, an American communist who falls fatally ill during return journey to Moscow.

1928 — Establishment in Egypt of Muslim Brotherhood, which becomes a model for Islamist groups around the world. Sayyid Qutb later joins and becomes an influential Islamist thinker, denouncing Soviet communism and American capitalism as un-Islamic.